Here's A 10-Second Guide To What Traders Are Talking About This Morning

Dave Lutz, head of ETF trading and strategy at Stifel Nicolaus,
passes along what he's "chattering about as I await the Beard" —
the bewhiskered Ben Bernanke's
final FOMC meeting.

Good Morning! Much of the overnight enthusiasm is wearing
off as EU/US traders’ man their desks. We had a Wall
at 1800 in the e-minis pre-market, and it’s hard to image a break
above prior to the FOMC announcement at 2pm
today. Right now E-Minis are off slightly, while
Nasdaq is slightly higher as AAPL tries to recover from
yesterday. Focus on Turkey, where the Lira has given
up a chunk of it’s gains, but remains near 2week highs against
the $. Turkey’s equity market saw it’s bid evaporate as
well, after being up 3% early, is now 1% underwater.
The DAX just bounced off unchanged, and the EU fins remain well
bid, up 60bp. Volumes have been decent overseas, with
major EU/UK markets trading 10-30% above their normal
trend. In Asia, the Nikkei leapt 2.7% as the Yen
dropped (Futures adding another 50bp), while the Sensex slipped
red on profit taking after yesterday’s jump. Ahead of
the Fed, my focus will be on the Lira$ and Real$ crosses – if
they start getting hit we could lose much of yesterday’s gains –
WSJ reports Last year the S&P 500 dropped during five of the
eight days the Fed concluded a meeting, a surprisingly consistent
outlier during the market’s record-breaking rally..
Single Stock Movers include FSL +8% (#s), DDD + 2%, EA + 2% (#s)
– The losers are RFMD, YHOO -4% (#s), VMW -3% (#s)

The 10YY in the US is up small, and continues to consolidate
around it’s 100dma. Stress remains in the Treasury Bills
expiring post debt-ceiling; with March maturities still yielding
10bp over Jan’s. The DXY is slightly lower, gaining
against the € but losing ground to the Yen. We
do have a bid to metals, specifically Industrial one like Silver
and Copper as China’s default risk fades into the sunset (for
now) – while Gold is jumping 1% as it has bounced a few days off
the $1250 level. Nat gas is trekking 2% higher, while
WTI is under pressure on a large inventory build in API data last
night. While the highlight of the day will be the FOMC
at2pm (No presser) – we have DOE data on Crude
at 10:30 (looking for a 2.2mln increase), there is NO
POMO today at 11, a early Treasury auction of floaters
at 11:30, and New Zealand announces on rates tonight at
5. Many will have there eyes on China’s official PMI
overnight, as the “flash” PMI spooked traders last week.